Can we coexist?

Refusing to be motivated by the politics of fear

Sep 05, 2006

Five years into the “war on terror,” are Americans any safer? Thankfully, there has been no major terrorist attack on American soil post-9/11, and that probably is not for terrorists’ lack of effort—as we were reminded by the plot, foiled in mid-August, to blow up passenger planes over the Atlantic Ocean.

But some of the things the U.S. has done have clearly made matters worse. The cochairs of the 9/11 Commission said recently that the Iraq war has been a diversion that has kept the country from taking the specific security measures the commission recommended. The U.S. has also failed to reach out to the Muslim world in enough positive ways. One government official has said that for every terrorist killed anywhere in the world, three more are cropping up.